Cousin Bet, Ms. Garrett

In getting your physical these days, one of the most popular areas with which to pad your bill is a Stress Test. The test can be either physical, in which you are put on the treadmill and your vitals are checked, or, as the case with the Holmes and Rahe Test, you estimate your stress by the number of “life change units”. For instance, the death of your spouse is rated 100, your retirement is rated 45 and death of a close friend or family member is 63.

This week, 5 days after the Haiti earthquake, a 17 year old girl was pulled from the debris alive. It is reported that all she could say, over and over, was “Thank you”. Can you even imagine her stress level? Think of laying under debris for one hour or twelves hours...one week...two weeks. It is still a matter of the endurance of the human being, the endurance of the human mind, the endurance of faith, that people can last as long as they do in terrible situations. Our blessed Lord told us that if we endure to the end, we will be saved. Often, someone will say to me, a totally blind person for most of my life, “It is hard for me to imagine what it is like.” My answer has always been the same, “You cannot imagine.”

My parents were very sociable. The most attractive and greatest personalities of both families, they were welcome everywhere and they visited everyone. As they prospered, we had a large home, beautiful farm, there were always guests, particularly people coming home from church...Sunday dinner. As a child, I remember visiting one of my father's cousins...cousin Bet. I had never been in such a beautiful home...up a tree-lined drive...beautiful furniture. Cousin Bet had been in the bed for 11 years. Her husband, I remember very well, sat in the room with her and would constantly run his hands through his white hair. I heard him tell my father that he had seldom left the house in 11 years, how many farms he had that he had not seen for a long time. He and a loyal black lady took care of her, and she required constant care. Who was in more stress? This wonderful lady who had so much and yet had little life left, or the loving husband who sat by her, day and night, watching the long, agonizing death?

I was probably the world's poorest college student the entire 8 years until, right out of school, I was commissioned into the Army as a medical officer. At Bellevue Baptist, one of the world's great churches, I met many wonderful people...my son's mother and I met there and our wedding was there. One lady, probably knowing that I needed a good meal, would invite me to her home for Sunday lunch, as well as other young men in the church. Some said she was just trying to find a husband for her unmarried daughter. But, I came to the conclusion that both she and her daughter liked the company of men...they liked to have men in their home...they liked to prepare food for people to enjoy. I really believe they both felt this was their mission in the Church, to meet and entertain many young men who were there in the professional school. Anyway, whatever, it was a wonderful experience. Ms. Garrett, the mother, had worked many years at Lowenstein's in Memphis. She had reached retirement age but this large expensive store continued to pay her just to be there and to greet her many customers. She had been an employee in the fur department and it was well worth the money paid her by the company to have her there just relieving the stress of customers by providing a reliable person who would help them make a selection. Louise, the daughter, was a nurse and we often talked of the importance of stress removal in treatment. 80% of successful medical care is simply a matter of relieving stress.

One of the most ridiculous headlines involving the recent earthquake, “14,000 Meals Sent to Haiti”, a city of 3 million people in ruins. Think of it, 200,000 dead, 200,000 with broken bodies,1 million homeless, the meals sent were mostly dried food. The most important life-saving activity in such a catastrophe is a matter of water. In the survival classes I taught in the military, my instruction to young warriors was always, “,ore important than your weapon, your canteen.” A person can live many days without food but most cannot live as long as this 17 year old, rescued in Port Au Prince, without water.

This week it was revealed that the Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, received $14 million a year in salary at Goldman Sachs. Before the oversight committee, he stated that he had always worked for the government. The secretaries at Goldman Sachs received over $1 million each in bonuses. Perhaps, they think they are working for the government, too. It is beyond my comprehension that this government, as well as governments of other countries, do not have a standard operating procedure (SOP) for “on the ready” survival plans in the case of a catastrophe anywhere. Disasters happen all the time and it is inconceivable that there should be so much suffering...human stress...stress over food...stress over water...stress for survival.

The beginning of the season of Lent is just three weeks away. Lent is a time of repentance. I observe Lent, repentance and converging, every day of my life. The Christians in the world should have only one desire...to live every word of the Gospel of Christ...every day, every season of their life.

Raised on a farm, my memory of farming: always too wet or too dry. In a time of dry weather my father would say, “The roots will go down seeking moisture...and when the rains do come, the crops will grow up overnight because they have such roots.” With the trees of the woodlands, it is a matter of the taproot, the longest root that goes down seeking moisture. The longest taproot ever found was in the state of Arizona, 193 feet long. It was in a desert, poor soil, poor rainfall, but the tree had weathered all adversity...all stress. A tree's ability to withstand a storm depends entirely on its root system. Your ability to withstand the storms of life, the stresses of life, depends on your root system...rooted in faith, rooted in God's Word. Grow your roots of faith deep...get your moisture of life deep within the recesses of your soul. This will enable you to live through stress, as did, obviously, the 17 year old in Haiti, Cousin Bet, Ms. Garrett and the many other giants of faith I have known in my life and on whose shoulders I stand.